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BuildingGreen: Onsite Verification Part of LEED’s Global Vision

This article originally appeared on BuildingGreen.com on Aug. 12, 2014.

GBCI will partner with Bureau Veritas to provide global support for LEED certification, with a focus on customer service and rigor.

A new partnership between Bureau Veritas S.A. and the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) is key to the fulfilling the increasingly global ambitions of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).

GBCI, which certifies building projects under USGBC’s LEED Rating System, will rely on Bureau Veritas to provide it with certification and customer outreach infrastructure outside the U.S. “Our agenda is global market transformation,” Mahesh Ramanujam, president of GBCI as well as chief operating officer for USGBC, told EBN, adding that partnerships like this allow LEED to push more building projects “further and faster.”

Same language, same time zone

Ramanujam said the partnership is focused on “emerging markets” where LEED’s impact is growing at a fast clip: India, where GBCI recently took over the reins of that country’s LEED brand; China; Brazil; and possibly dozens more countries over time. Bureau Veritas “will offer their offices, their personnel who are green building experts,” said Ramanujam. Most importantly he said, the partnership will help ensure that “customers get the right level of support, not just during but prior to the certification process.” He stressed, “GBCI has total control over brand, experience, and quality assurance.”

“How do we get closer to the customers?” asked Ramanujam. He described Bureau Veritas as providing “in-country” capacity to support GBCI in the “same language, same time zone.” He noted, “It would have taken years for us to create this infrastructure around the world.”